Written by the CCN Event Team

We had a wonderful night celebrating all of our cultures and our community at our Cultural Connection Night! There was a variety of cultural songs and dances shared, as well as beautiful art by our teens displayed. The show was hosted by our amazing emcees, Big AL and Kameron! We would like to thank all of our performers for taking the time to come out to share their cultures with us including Destiny, Vanh, Freda, Frank, Kaylani, Vincent, Khmer Amarak Performing Arts, The PAK, EHS East African Club and the Danh Boys.

We hosted a Culture Catwalk where we invited the community to dress in their cultural attire or make a flag at our arts and crafts table, so that they could STRUT THEIR STUFF. We had an array of cultures represented from the Pacific Islands to Somalia. Thank you to everyone who participated. You all looked AMAZING!

A big shout out to everyone who submitted artwork to the competition. We had over 40 paintings, drawings, and photographs submitted. Congrats again to Benedicte and Peter on their wins! We also had our local high school’s Vietnamese Heritage Class display posters they made to share information about Vietnamese culture and traditions. Our Rec Aides displayed and shared the projects they’ve been working on throughout the school year. There was also an awesome display of the Log Cabin’s history and even a Cabin replica made out of LEGOS!

Additional gratitude to all of the WCTP staff, teens, alumni and WC community members that shared what they remember most about living and working in White Center, Washington. The Stories of WC video that premiered during CCN was created by Michelle and featured the insights of JSmoove, Peanutt, Alessandro, Rasheed, Katherine, Joseph, Ei Hla, Arone, Stephanie, Manira, Jazmin, Vana, Michael, Jonathan, Laila, Kameron, Keilah, Landon, Jimmie, Charmanie, Michelle, Allison, Vae, Abe, Henok, Peter, Bill, Allan, and Pat.

Special thank you to the Highly Hated Foundation and Puffy Panda for their donations to our raffle baskets. Our winners Joseph and Angelina really enjoyed their baskets and all of the goodies in them!

Additional thanks to the WC Blog and WC Now for promoting the event, to the Friends of SCMP for stocking the little free libraries, to Mr. W and Ms. Allison for building the little libraries, to Ms. Brandy for the history of WC and the park, to Ms. Alejandra for the technical assist, to all the community partners that showed up to support, and to King County Parks for the new maps of WC (available in four languages.) Finally, we owe an enormous shoutout of gratitude to the Sunset crew for all they do to support the Teen Program year-round and especially during large neighborhood events.

Seeing everyone come together to celebrate how diverse our community is was such a great experience and only reinforces how great White Center really is!